Silence Festival II – 2011 Review

Before I go to any further, I wish to express my gratitude to the Silence Entertainment and Mr. Bikrant Shrestha without whom we couldn’t have experienced one of the greatest metal show in our life.

Yeah it was October 15, one of the much anticipated day for all metal heads in Nepal .The biggest metal festival of Nepal was upon us .The anticipation was high for the reason that almighty VADER was about to perform this time. So, with much anticipation, we entered the venue much earlier than it started. The stage was grand and awesome, the sound, lighting, visuals etc., were all top-notch. Surrounding the ground were guards from Garud Security and the Cops were all prepared. The crowds were gradually increasing as the show was about to begin.

First up was Hatebook. They had the dynamic opening to the show. Actually, this is the first band which I saw them emerged to this huge in no time and they completely deserved it. The crowd was lesser during Hatebook’s play as the show had just begun but they were able to thrill the small number of crowd to the fullest.

Next up was the band the Innercore- a metal band from Hongkong. The band played own originals and I find their songs to be majorly inspired from the band Lamb of God and As I lay Dying which they mentioned too at the start of their play. Since I wasn’t into core stuffs I couldn’t hold a strong enough claim on my interest .So, to risk further damage my limbs and I sat patiently as the band performed and waited for next band to play.

Kalodin was up next and this was obviously a band that a lot of people were waiting for. The band was finalized just before a week ahead of this festival replacing Innerguilt. The performance of Kalodin was awesome. But the only disappointment with Kalodin was, this was not the right time for their performance but they had to perform on this day light. I mean the band would have seen awesome on stage in that lighting offered. Nevertheless, the performance was enthusiastic and interesting with the audience wanting more from them.

The band next bounced onto the stage was Commando noise terror. This band is the solo project from Guido Wyss (drummer from Enigmatic-the band which performed in last year Silence festival). I had never thought in my life that drum solo can be that atmospheric too .And the use of double pedal with the chaotic track was simply awesome. This could probably be one of the best drumming solo I have ever heard. Basically, he included all the musical genre in drumming whether it be classical, jazz or electronic .The speed, intensity and pure energy of him made whole audience absolutely astounding.,

The sun was slowly setting as Helmut began to rise on the stage. The crowds were increasing and could see hordes of Nepalese Metal-heads over there. Helmut was new band to my ears, and I found them technically good. And one could feel the quality of sound shifted as the foreign band performed. They started with some classical riffs played by our very own Anil Dhital on Sitar. The fusion of Sitar with technical metal sounded good .After Dhital left the stage, the played their own originals which were incredible. Their solid set of performance was entertaining. Basically, the performance was flawless and almost inhumanly perfect.

Antim Grahan-as expected, played to somewhat larger crowd and skillfully delivered their goods. The one man who grabbed all the attention was the drummer – Surya Pun(pure energy and intensity) .But my eyes were all on Niraj Shakya this time. He used some epic stuffs on his keyworks mixing tranquility of the melodies -nice epic stuffs on that epic night. I couldn’t identify all the songs of their play list though, since I’m not perfectly familiar with their complete works.

As the band was ready to end their show with their last song, the crowd hit them with the demand to play “Hallowed be thy name” and the band was left with no option. Although, it seems they were not prepared for the song they did it well to some extend leaving people singing the chorus ”Hallowed be thy name”..

Next band up was Underside. For those who don’t know about this band, it is the band which was formed just before the Silence Festival and has Bikrant Shrestha (the Founder director of Silence entertainment) as guitarist. Their songs have retro rock to old school trash influences. They managed to pull off a decent show but I couldn’t concentrate much on their show much since I had in my mind that Vader was next to come.

After much await and anticipation finally Vader showed up at the stage. Obviously, Vader were greeted by one of the largest crowds the festival offered. I was fucking amazed to see them live just in front of my eyes!! And as Vader started to hit the songs, couldn’t stop hammering my head along with the biggest crowd of metalheads the country has ever seen. I could see Peter playing his solos just before my eyes and the tone was blowing me away. I haven’t seen any band playing ‘live’ with such passion and feel yet chilled out on its own way. Vader set-list contains the songs “Impure”,”This is the war’, “Back to the blind” “Silent Empire” and more. These epic songs from Vader left the audience wanting more.

And the time came when Black lord embraced us when the almighty Vader covered “Black Sabbath” from the creator Black Sabbath.(Vader made the song even more evil). We were just started getting blown away that we got poured with”Raining Blood”.(Slayer cover).Definitely heavier than the original. Best cover I’ve heard. Tribute to legend from another legend.

VADER formally ended the show greeting the audience with “Subha-raatri Kathmandu”..

And in this way, the greatest Metalfest had this grand ending before we knew SILENCE dawned on us. The experience was so beautiful that it can’t be expressed in words. I will never really have the perfect festival experience..Thank you Silence Festival for everything!!!!!

hi, we are Dream Diabolic a Progressive Metal Band from Sikkim, India consisting of 5 members. its rely great to know that such kind of festival is held in Nepal and we too would love to join such great great event so please let us also know d procedure to join this fest.. Thank you you can check us in this linkhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Dream-Diabolic/162132670501199